"We cannot also attribute the cause to anything because we will have to comply with the international regulation to wait for the investigation."

Visibility was said to be good but air traffic monitor Flightradar24 reported that the plane's "vertical speed was unstable after take-off".

An eyewitness at the scene told the BBC there was an intense fire as the aircraft hit the ground.

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"The blast and the fire were so strong that we couldn't get near it," he said. "Everything is burnt down."

First word of the crash came when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed his "deepest condolences" on Twitter.

Recovery operations were under way near the crash site around the town of Bishoftu, which is 60km (37 miles) south-east of the capital.

The plane was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines on 15 November last year, records show.

Who are the victims?

Mr Gebremariam told the news conference that passengers from more than 30 countries were on board the flight.

He said they included 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, eight Chinese, eight Americans, seven Britons, seven French citizens, six Egyptians, five Dutch citizens, four Indians and four people from Slovakia.

Slovak MP Anton Hrnko later confirmed via Facebook that his wife and two children were on the plane.

Three Austrians, three Swedes, three Russians, two Moroccans, two Spaniards, two Poles and two Israelis were also on the flight.

Four people held United Nations passports, the airline said, and it believed some passengers could have been heading to a session of the UN Environment Assembly which begins in Nairobi on Monday.

The pilot was named as Senior Captain Yared Getachew who had a "commendable performance" with more than 8,000 hours in the air, the airline said.

There is no suggestion that the Ethiopian Airlines jet suffered similar issues on Sunday.

What about the airline's safety record?Ethiopian Airlines flies to many destinations in Africa, making it a popular carrier in a continent where many airlines fly only from their home country to destinations outside Africa.

It has a good reputation for safety, although in 2010 one of the company's aeroplanes crashed in the Mediterranean Sea shortly after leaving Beirut.

The incident killed 90 people on board.

The airline's highest fatalities prior to this came in a November 1996 crash during a hijacking on a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.

One of the plane's engines stopped when the fuel ran out and although pilots attempted an emergency water landing, they hit a coral reef in the Indian Ocean and 123 of the 175 people on board were killed.